Seattle’s $700,000 youth focussed Participatory Budgeting

Youth Voice, Youth Choice is a Participatory Budgeting (PB) process in which Seattle youth will democratically decide how to spend $700,000 of the City’s budget.

This initiative began here in July 2015 when Seattle Mayor Murray and former Councilmember Nick Licata announced the launch of a citywide youth PB process. Youth Voice, Youth Choice is managed by the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods with the goal of empowering youth to make decisions on how to spend a portion of the budget. The process is guided by a steering committee which is comprised of youth and adults from community-based organizations around Seattle.

The Seattle PB process in 4 easy steps

Seattle youth came together to brainstorm ideas, vet those ideas, develop proposals, and finally vote on how to spend the budget. City of Seattle departments will then implement the winning projects. Vote Week is May 21st – 29th 2016.Young people cast their vote for their favorite projects which range from park improvements to youth programs to arts funding.